Through this talk and discussion, we will explore creative research into embodiment, performativity, and the creation of “history”. ‘The Charting Body Becomes Memory’ is a presentation on the complexities of knowledge, of storytelling//making, and their relationship to both land and power. Emily Dundas Oke, a current artist in resident at Nida Art Colony, will share a presentation on Indigenous contemporary art practices, framing them within international discourses that demonstrate the body as a knowing subject. As a Cree and Metis cultural worker, her work looks to investigate how artists carry forth the memory of important territorial negotiations by using performance. Attending this talk presents us with an opportunity to encounter different ways of conceptualizing “knowledge” – to understand ways in which contemporary artists, within both Lithuania and “Canada”, use the body as historiographic tools.

Bio:

Emily Dundas Oke is an emerging curator and artist. Her work addresses complicated relationships to land as they are embodied within the performative work of contemporary Indigenous artists. A 2018 graduate of Thompson Rivers University (TRU), Canada, she has been the awarded the Ken Lepin Prize of Excellence. Currently, she is co-curator for Artist as a Digital Archivist project, an international video works project with screenings and discussions in Oslo, Vilnius, and Canada. As an artist, Emily works between mediums to navigate conceptions and interventions of public spaces, often employing photography and installation to examine the role of perception in shaping our phenomenological experiences. She has exhibited in Canada and internationally, and is an alumni of the TRU Indigenous Knowledge Makers program, where she developed research relating to the body as a site of knowing within performative works. Emily is currently artist in residence at Nida Art Colony.